1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a recording apparatus and a recording method, particularly to a technique used for a recording apparatus capable of recording data on a removable medium, such as an optical disc or a semiconductor memory card.
2. Description of the Related Art
In recent years, recording apparatuses capable of recording data on a large-capacity removable medium, such as an optical disc or a memory card, have become mainstream, and media of various types of storage capacity have been used. For example, one-side recording DVDs (digital versatile discs) include a disc having recording capacity of about 1.4 GB and a diameter of 8 cm; and a disc having recording capacity of about 4.7 GB and a diameter of 12 cm.
Typically, in a portable apparatus, such as a video camera to record image signals on a DVD, importance is placed on portability and thus a disc of a smaller diameter, that is, an 8 cm disc, is used therein (e.g., see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-257021). On the other hand, a 12 cm disc is optimum as a medium to eventually store image data for reasons of large storage capacity and a low unit price.
Under these circumstances, a configuration of eventually storing data by copying the data recorded on a plurality of rewritable 8 cm discs to a 12 cm disc can be suggested. In this way, by copying data to the 12 cm disc and then erasing the data on the 8 cm discs, the 8 cm discs can be used again for shooting.
As described above, the 8 cm disc is compact but the storage capacity thereof is smaller than that of the 12 cm disc. Thus, if image data is recorded in a high image quality mode of high bit rate, data of only a very short time (e.g., about 20 minutes) can be recorded on the 8 cm disc. Thus, when shooting is performed by using the 8 cm disc during a trip or an event, a plurality of discs are required to record images in many cases.
For example, when a backup of data recorded on 8 cm discs is to be made by using a 12 cm disc, data recorded on three 8 cm discs can be recorded on a 12 cm disc.
As a specific backup method, the following method can be used. That is, an 8 cm disc is loaded into a main body of a video camera, data recorded on the 8 cm disc is transferred to an external drive, and then the data is copied onto a 12 cm disc. This series of operations is repeated three times.
When such a backup operation is performed, it is ideal that pieces of data to be recorded on the 12 cm disc as a backup are sorted in the order of having been recorded in the main body of the video camera. For this reason, data transfer needs to be performed in accordance with the order of discs on which data is recorded.
Particularly, when data is to be recorded in a DVD video mode so that the data can be reproduced by a typical DVD player, a reproducing order cannot be changed after recording, and thus the data needs to be written in a desired reproducing order during backup.
In the above-described method, when images of an event are recorded on a plurality of 8 cm discs, a cumbersome task is imposed on a user to determine the order of the discs.
For example, the user needs to take a note on labels of the discs or check the content of all the discs to determine a backup order before making a backup of the data.